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'Best of Breed' for Rompler Expansion ROMs...

Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 7:11 pm
by andym72
Hello All,

Yes, this is my first post, but I have been reading VSE Forums for years. Yes, I know the "No versus threads" rule, and this post will go very close to that rule, but hopefully wont be deemed 'verses'.

Its also a bit hypothetical #-o

So, picture the scene. A keyboard player has got a bunch of hardware Rompler Synths. And they have these synths for one of the reasons people use sample bases synths - to be able to play a keyboard that sounds like another instrument without having to buy a ton of different keyboard or to learn to play something else.

And they've not got into VSTi samplers because... well, whatever, maybe they like to just switch the thing on and play for instance.

So they have these Romplers, that can take expansion ROMs you expand the wavesforms you can use:

Korg Triton
EMU Proteus 2000
Roland Fantom
Kurzweil 2600

All the Expansion ROMs for these cover a wide selection of sounds, but tend to be grouped into types. So the question is, if you want the 'best sounding' extra waveforms of a particular type, which 'sound type' should I buy for which synth? And when I say 'Best Sounding' I mean 'least likely to give away that the sound is from a Hardware Rompler' :P

For instance, should this person get the Piano for the Roland, the Vintage Keyboards for the Triton, the Orchestral Brass for the Proteus and the Orchestral Strings for the Kurz? Which combination would you go for, with the minimum of overlap?

Heres some ideas of the types

Piano:
SRX Complete Piano
Proteus Sounds of the ZR
EXB Concert Grand Piano
Soundblock Stereo Dynamic Piano

General Orchestra:

SRX Complete Orchestra
Proteus Siedlaczek
EXB Orchestral Collection
Soundblock Orchestral

Orch Strings:

SRX Symphonic Strings
Proteus Orchestral Session Vol. 1

Orch Brass:

SRX Big Brass Ensemble
Proteus Orchestral Session Vol. 2

Vintage Keyboards:

SRX Ultimate Keys, Classic EPs
Proteus Vintage Collection, B3
EXB Pianos/Classic Keyboards, Vintage Archives
Soundblock Vintage Electric Piano

Pop/More Bread'n'Butter (...than the built in ROM)

SRX Studio
Proteus Sounds of the ZR
EXB Studio Essentials
Soundblock Contemporary

Dance Music

SRX Supreme Dance, Platinum Trax
Proteus X-Lead, TSCY, Beat Garden
EXB Dance Extreme, Trance Attack

Ethnic/World Music

SRX World Connection
Proteus World Expedition

Thoughts Please....

Andy

Re: 'Best of Breed' for Rompler Expansion ROMs...

Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 7:34 pm
by Dano
For the Proteus 2000, the hypothetical keyboard player should get the Techno Synth Construction Yard ROM for electronic and dance sounds. I've heard a lot of the P2000 ROMs and IMO the TSCY is head and shoulders above the others in terms of overall sample quality. (One caveat to this is the Solina sample has a painfully obvious multisample crossover point.)

Re: 'Best of Breed' for Rompler Expansion ROMs...

Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 8:24 pm
by Jack Spider
Welcome to VSE, Andy! This does class as a 'Buyer's Guide' thread, so I'll move it there.

Cheers.

Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 8:15 am
by crystalmsc
from some of the synths and expansion boards that I own, I always like Roland's best for their acoustic/orchestral/brass/string/piano/ep/drums sample libraries. Since the engine sounds great for those type of sounds and supporting the programming as well. I only expand the Karma with a Moss board and have no interest in expanding the Rom, while the JV/JD are fully expanded. I'm interested with the Orchestral Expansion board for the Triton though, mainly for live playing within the combi mode, but got it covered for a while. As for the E-mu samples, I'm mostly enjoying those in the soundfont banks format and have some reasonably good experience from several that I've got, mainly the hip-hop drums sounds. Remember that those samples are going to be as good as the engine playing it back, so make sure that the main engine fit, and as far as sample libraries goes, mosty Roland Fit me best. Also some synth offer a whole synth instead of just some samples. Things that got me interested is the VA-1 board in the Kurz PC3x and some of the Yamaha's PLG boards.

thanks

Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 12:18 pm
by dadohx08